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Method

Butter and line a traybake or small
roasting tin, about 20 x 30cm. Heat
oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4. Gently
melt the butter in a large saucepan,
cool for 5 mins, add sugar, vanilla
and eggs, then beat until smooth with
a wooden spoon. Stir in the flour,
cocoa and ¼ tsp salt. Stir in the milk chocolate drops and bake
for 35 mins until risen all over and a skewer
comes out with a few damp crumbs.

For the top, gently heat 85g butter
and 85g caster sugar together until
both are melted. Stir in 200g light
condensed milk and bring to a boil.
Cool for 5 mins, then stir in 50g milk
chocolate drops to melt. Spread
over the cold cake, scatter with more
chocolate drops and cut into squares.

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Comments, questions and tips

Comments

I cooked my cake for 20 mins and it was already done by then so unless your tin is really small I would definitely keep checking it. Also I could see the condensed mixture wasn't thick enough after the 5 mins cooling time so i boiled it up again and left it for a minute or so, after which it thickened and changed to a golden colour and set fine, so I think the recipe should say to boil it for a minute or two not just bring to boil and switch off. Tasted good though!

This has to be the easiest cake recipe ever. I have made this cake twice now which has gone down a storm in this household. Although I don't have much of a sweet tooth, I tried a piece the first time round and, whilst I thought the cake itself was absolutely delicious, I didn't think much to the topping which I felt was a bit on the bland side, yet sickly sweet.

The second time round, I made the cake in the same way (although adding milk chocolate chunks as opposed to drops) but when it came to the topping I added a 100g bar of plain chocolate - just Tesco's own which was only 30p - rather than 50g of milk chocolate. However, I did still sprinkle with milk chocolate drops. The transformation was amazing - the plain chocolate seems to counteract the sickly sweetness leaving a lovely chocolatey fudge topping that complements the cake perfectly in my opinion. A definite winner with that little tweak.

The batter didn't look right after mixing with a wooden spoon so used a hand whisk which did the job fine
As others have said, the icing was very runny. When it still hadn't set sufficiently after 15 minutes, I popped it in the fridge which helped
I had to cut off the edges of the whole cake as they were burnt - the rest tasted lovely and chocolatey. Will reduce the cooking time in future.
I used a light spread rather than butter to try and make it a little bit healthier!

I've made this several times without the icing and loved it. I tried the icing this time and found the icing was far too sweet. I much prefer the un-iced version. Five stars un-iced, two or three with the icing.

The burnt icing comments terrified me as that is exactly what would happen to me distracted by the kids so I used the microwave for the icing. I did 30 second increments to check on the icing and to stir occasionally - I knew it had come to a boil when the mixture started rising in the bowl:-) And it looks quite liquid but it sets as it cools - delicious and different - try it:-)

I've just made this recipe for a coffee morning tomorrow. I'm a bit disappointed with the cake itself as it is quite flat: I used a Swizz roll tin of exactly the right dimensions and it hasn't risen above the tin. I've found the icing easy to make though. I hope it tastes good but I may now have to make an indulgent looking chocolate cake as well as this one doesn't seem to fit the bill.

A Swiss roll tin is not what was recommended in the method; a roasting tin or tray bake tin is typically 2" deep whereas a Swiss roll tin is much shallower, about 1" or less. No cake will rise above the tin height - you may observe a kind of oven spring where it does initially when coming to temperature in the oven as carbon dioxide is released but the foam sponge structure can only be as tall as the tin, unless it domes in the middle which is not what you want for a tray bake. Hope this helps.

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